Suggestions for me

it's been a year since i've been trying to have a lucid dream now. i've tried keeping a dream journal, doing reality checks, and various techniques i've read about. i haven't had any luck at all, but i think my dream recall has improved. could you guys make a suggestion to me that suits my situation? how should i do reality checks? when do them, sometimes i just look around real quick to see if anything is out of place and other times i think about it real hard, but i truly don't feel satisfied with them.

Try doing one or two reality checks many times a day so that it would become a habit. After it has become a habit, it's very likely that the habit will carry on in your dreams. A reality check I would recommend is pinching your nose and trying to breath through it. If you can breath, you're in dream. It's a RC that has never failed for me.

I have to agree with him, also I suggest that throughout the day just ask yourself in strange situations, am i dreaming, do this often, also it is good to write in you dream journal right when you wake up, don't move around until you've wrote all you can remember. This might help too.

Thanks for the nose pinching idea, it seems like a good one. I try waking up earlier with an alarm clock, but no matter how loud I make it, I sleep right through it. I could sleep through any noise. I have someone wake me up every morning and it always surprises me so i forget my dream immediately so it's hard to write dreams down daily.

Being awaken by someone else isn't good for dream recall--it jerks your body out of sleep without being able to leave the deeper sleep states, so memory is lost. It's kind of like turning your computer off while you're working on an assignment--it doesn't properly shut down, so you'll probably lose most or all of the work. A good technique if you have problems waking up is to drink a lot of water before going to bed, and start a schedule. Schedules are a pain in the butt, but it works better than most anything. If you can go to sleep at the same time every night, and have somebody wake you up at the same time the next day for a week, your body will compensate and begin to wake up at that time without the person awaking you--giving your body time to 'shut down' the dreams and recall them.